Patriotism and Protest http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/learning/lesson- plans/text-to-text-colin-kaepernicks-national- anthem-protest-and-frederick-douglasss-what-to- the-slave-is-the-4th-of-july.html?_r=0

What do you know of Colin Kaepernick’sProtest What do you know of Colin Kaepernick’sProtest? What, do you think, his protest will/did accomplish? 1. Do you agree with the protest? Why or why not?

2• What do the American flag and national anthem represent 2• What do the American flag and national anthem represent? 3• What is patriotism, and how should it be expressed? 4• Can protest be a form of patriotism? 5• Does patriotism require imagination? How does a history of injustice and inequality in this nation affect our shared understanding of our national symbols?

History of protest E.A. Atlee’s rewritten anthem “Oh Say, Do You Hear?” (1844) replaces Francis Scott Key’s victorious battle imagery with that of a brutal beating: Oh, say do you hear, at the dawn’s early light, The shrieks of those bondmen, whose blood is now streaming From the merciless lash, while our banner in sight With its stars, mocking freedom, is fitfully gleaming? Do you see the backs bare? Do you mark every score Of the whip of the driver trace channels of gore? And say, doth our star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

History of protest In the rewritten anthem, the final two lines in the first verse are unchanged. What is the effect of this? How is the meaning altered?

Abolitionist Flag Includes stripes and stars from only states that had abolished slavery.

History of protest 6. Would the abolitionist flag be viewed as “unpatriotic” in 1859? Why or why not? 7. Is the abolitionist flag excluding Southern states hopeful or defeatist?

History of protest The 1968 Olympians Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos protested when the anthem played after they were presented with medals in Mexico City. Jackie Robinson Muhammad Ali

Read and contrast Read the two texts. Brooks and Douglass Answer the following: 8. Do you think Brooks and Douglass view symbols, like the flag and the National Anthem the same way? What role do you think these symbols play in American life? Do you think in necessary to have the National Anthem sung before sporting events? 11. We recite the pledge every day at the start of school. Why do we do that? Do you think it’s necessary?

Follow-up 12. If you were to publicly protest something, what would it be? 13. How would you go about protesting? (What would you do? What would that look like to the public?) 14. What is one thing that stood out to you, or that you learned in this lesson?